Kingston 4 GB Class 4 SDHC Flash Memory Card SD4/4GB Review.
"Kingston quality, massive storage, what's not to love?" 2008-12-03
By Nathan Beauchamp (Oak Park, IL USA)
There are some things to consider before buying this particular card or any other 32gb SDHC card on the market:
1. This is NOT an ideal card for a digital SLR like a D80, D90, Rebel XT, etc... That is because it is a class 4 device. The class of a SDHC cards has to do with how fast they read and write files, not how much storage they have. For a digital SLR, you should purchase a class 6 SDHC card most of the time. Class 6 cards will allow you to take 'bursts' of photos and not be limited by the card's capacity to write them. Also class 4 cards are slower reading data, meaning they will take longer to upload files to your computer. Upload speed is convenient, especially when loading large batches of files.
2. This card has far more storage than most people will need for their digital camera. Unless you like to keep all your photos on a SDHC card and never move them to your computer, or are a high volume photographer, there is very little need for more than about 8gb of storage space for most caeras. The possible exception to this is if you have a professional SLR that shoots files in the 16-20mb range--but if you do, you'll likely want a class 6 card anyway. If all you intend to use this card for is a digital camera, save yourself a lot of money and buy a PNY 8GB SDHC Card. If you're worried about running out of space on a vacation, buy a few of them. Otherwise you run the risk of having 'all your eggs in one basket.' If one card fails, you lose all your pictures instead of only a portion of them.
This card is fantastic for use in a video camcorder capable of writing to an SDHC card. (Check with the manual first to insure that a class 4 card will be fast enough first). It is also perfect as extra storage for an ultra portable computer or net book like the Asus EEE pc. Another great application would be as added storage to a personal media player or MP3 player equipped with a SDHC slot such as the Cowon D2.
There are other good 32gb SDHC cards on the market, some at cheaper price points than the Kingston card. IMHO, brand matters very little with something like a SDHC card, since they all are made pretty much the same way. None of the brands currently offering them (Transcend, PNY, Kingston) have high fail rates with their other products, so I believe they are all pretty similar. What you decide to buy will depend on whether you trust a particular brand, or who has the lowest price. All of them will work equally well.
"Very Big" 2008-09-08
By Robert S. Ambrose (USA)
PREFACE:
I bought this card for extra disk space on my Asus EeePC netbook. I needed as much space as possible to supplement the very small SSD hard drive. I needed something with large capacity and relatively fast file transfer time.
PROS:
It shares the largest SD capacity on the market today with few others (Panasonic, Sandisk, and PNY) and is a quality name that I have had a good history with in the past. Its file transfer time is similar to the SSD drive in my machine so it basically acts as a second SSD for me at less than a quarter of the price!
CONS:
Its not the cheapest 32gb SD card(PNY) nor the fastest(Panasonic) but its good quality with a decent transfer rate.
CONCLUSION:
I'm very happy with its performance and capacity. I would like to see the price come down a bit, but that's the price of getting electronics of this caliber.
That's my input, take it or leave it :)
"Fast Card" 2007-11-22
By Biju Vaderiyattil (South Brunswick, NJ USA)
I have this card. This is extremely fast card. I did a test on my laptop sd slot writing 6 gb files onto the card. Average speed was 5mb per second. that was more than it rated for.
"If it was a little faster..." 2008-01-19
By D. Bermejo
I contemplated a 4 star rating, but when you buy the card, you know that it is a "class 4" card, which means it's supposed to transfer files at at least 4GB/s. If it's crucial and you can afford it, you could get the "class 6" card, which would make a difference when transferring large amounts of data.
In short:
*Pros:*
- Capacity. You can get more capacity, but this is a bout the best size/price ratio.
- Price. Again, 8GB and 4GB cards have the best size/price ratio.
*Cons:*
- SDHC. This is not really a con if you have new equipment, but SDHC is a newer standard, so you have to make sure you have the right equipment - SDHC IS NOT THE SAME AS SD!!
- Speed. It's not "slow", but if you've had fast cards you'll notice the difference. Of course, you know this from the "Class 4" rating, so it's also not really a con.
I've owned 2 Kingston SD cards. The oldest of them is about 3 years old and is still as reliable and good as when I first got it, so I have reason to believe this card will last for a while.
My older Kingston 50X SD card is about twice as fast as this card, but it's only 1GB, so I needed more GB's to capture more video. This card would be just about perfect if it was faster. When I say that, I don't mean that the card is slow - my Vista machine can use it for ReadyBoost and camera performance is good. Just know that ReadyBoost can only use 4GB of memory, so you'll have 4GB of memory just sitting unused if you use it for this purpose.
Primarily, I use this card for recording video clips and pictures with my Canon cameras, SD800IS and A710IS. For that purpose the card is great. I haven't noticed any lag when taking 7.1 Mega-pixel pictures (which range from 1MB to about 4MBs) or full screen VGA video (640x480). Here's some general advice for these cameras in particular, but it applies to most cameras:
1. Don't record more than about 10 minutes of video at a time because the file size goes over 1GB, but this depends on the camera and video format, not the card itself.
2. You might want to get an external card reader, if you don't have an internal card reader. You'll be fine transferring files directly from the camera if you only take a few snapshots and short videos. But if you plan on truly using all 8GB and transferring them at once, do yourself a favor and get a card reader. Most cameras are not meant to read/transfer files at fast speeds (even if they're USB 2.0 capable), and at least with the SD800IS, I could not transfer files over 500MB. Once I used a memory card reader, transferring was a breeze.
Although reading times are fast enough (between 4-8MB/s), writing is a bit slower - it tops out at about 4MB/s, which is good enough for the "Class 4" rating and fast enough to capture pictures without (noticeable) lag in my cameras.
It's a great card for the price; just make sure you understand what you're buying.
"Don't be swayed by idiot customers.." 2008-02-25
By A. N. Shiau (San Gabriel, CA United States)
The Kingston 4gb SDHC memory card, like all other Kingston products, is an exceptional piece of equipment. I use it with my Canon SD1000 and I get nothing but blazing fast write times and no headaches. Make sure your device supports SDHC because if not, it will not work. This is a key reason why people are left "unsatisfied" by what they get, not because of the product, but because they did not do their homework.
Buyers, you should really take note that, most reviews on any site about not only Kingston, but other great brands, is heavily altered by idiot customers leaving comments to attack the site that sold them the items. So don't quickly judge an product based on how many stars it has, because honestly, you cannot take that into consideration unless you have read every review posted.
By Nathan Beauchamp (Oak Park, IL USA)
There are some things to consider before buying this particular card or any other 32gb SDHC card on the market:
1. This is NOT an ideal card for a digital SLR like a D80, D90, Rebel XT, etc... That is because it is a class 4 device. The class of a SDHC cards has to do with how fast they read and write files, not how much storage they have. For a digital SLR, you should purchase a class 6 SDHC card most of the time. Class 6 cards will allow you to take 'bursts' of photos and not be limited by the card's capacity to write them. Also class 4 cards are slower reading data, meaning they will take longer to upload files to your computer. Upload speed is convenient, especially when loading large batches of files.
2. This card has far more storage than most people will need for their digital camera. Unless you like to keep all your photos on a SDHC card and never move them to your computer, or are a high volume photographer, there is very little need for more than about 8gb of storage space for most caeras. The possible exception to this is if you have a professional SLR that shoots files in the 16-20mb range--but if you do, you'll likely want a class 6 card anyway. If all you intend to use this card for is a digital camera, save yourself a lot of money and buy a PNY 8GB SDHC Card. If you're worried about running out of space on a vacation, buy a few of them. Otherwise you run the risk of having 'all your eggs in one basket.' If one card fails, you lose all your pictures instead of only a portion of them.
This card is fantastic for use in a video camcorder capable of writing to an SDHC card. (Check with the manual first to insure that a class 4 card will be fast enough first). It is also perfect as extra storage for an ultra portable computer or net book like the Asus EEE pc. Another great application would be as added storage to a personal media player or MP3 player equipped with a SDHC slot such as the Cowon D2.
There are other good 32gb SDHC cards on the market, some at cheaper price points than the Kingston card. IMHO, brand matters very little with something like a SDHC card, since they all are made pretty much the same way. None of the brands currently offering them (Transcend, PNY, Kingston) have high fail rates with their other products, so I believe they are all pretty similar. What you decide to buy will depend on whether you trust a particular brand, or who has the lowest price. All of them will work equally well.
By Robert S. Ambrose (USA)
PREFACE:
I bought this card for extra disk space on my Asus EeePC netbook. I needed as much space as possible to supplement the very small SSD hard drive. I needed something with large capacity and relatively fast file transfer time.
PROS:
It shares the largest SD capacity on the market today with few others (Panasonic, Sandisk, and PNY) and is a quality name that I have had a good history with in the past. Its file transfer time is similar to the SSD drive in my machine so it basically acts as a second SSD for me at less than a quarter of the price!
CONS:
Its not the cheapest 32gb SD card(PNY) nor the fastest(Panasonic) but its good quality with a decent transfer rate.
CONCLUSION:
I'm very happy with its performance and capacity. I would like to see the price come down a bit, but that's the price of getting electronics of this caliber.
That's my input, take it or leave it :)
By Biju Vaderiyattil (South Brunswick, NJ USA)
I have this card. This is extremely fast card. I did a test on my laptop sd slot writing 6 gb files onto the card. Average speed was 5mb per second. that was more than it rated for.
By D. Bermejo
I contemplated a 4 star rating, but when you buy the card, you know that it is a "class 4" card, which means it's supposed to transfer files at at least 4GB/s. If it's crucial and you can afford it, you could get the "class 6" card, which would make a difference when transferring large amounts of data.
In short:
*Pros:*
- Capacity. You can get more capacity, but this is a bout the best size/price ratio.
- Price. Again, 8GB and 4GB cards have the best size/price ratio.
*Cons:*
- SDHC. This is not really a con if you have new equipment, but SDHC is a newer standard, so you have to make sure you have the right equipment - SDHC IS NOT THE SAME AS SD!!
- Speed. It's not "slow", but if you've had fast cards you'll notice the difference. Of course, you know this from the "Class 4" rating, so it's also not really a con.
I've owned 2 Kingston SD cards. The oldest of them is about 3 years old and is still as reliable and good as when I first got it, so I have reason to believe this card will last for a while.
My older Kingston 50X SD card is about twice as fast as this card, but it's only 1GB, so I needed more GB's to capture more video. This card would be just about perfect if it was faster. When I say that, I don't mean that the card is slow - my Vista machine can use it for ReadyBoost and camera performance is good. Just know that ReadyBoost can only use 4GB of memory, so you'll have 4GB of memory just sitting unused if you use it for this purpose.
Primarily, I use this card for recording video clips and pictures with my Canon cameras, SD800IS and A710IS. For that purpose the card is great. I haven't noticed any lag when taking 7.1 Mega-pixel pictures (which range from 1MB to about 4MBs) or full screen VGA video (640x480). Here's some general advice for these cameras in particular, but it applies to most cameras:
1. Don't record more than about 10 minutes of video at a time because the file size goes over 1GB, but this depends on the camera and video format, not the card itself.
2. You might want to get an external card reader, if you don't have an internal card reader. You'll be fine transferring files directly from the camera if you only take a few snapshots and short videos. But if you plan on truly using all 8GB and transferring them at once, do yourself a favor and get a card reader. Most cameras are not meant to read/transfer files at fast speeds (even if they're USB 2.0 capable), and at least with the SD800IS, I could not transfer files over 500MB. Once I used a memory card reader, transferring was a breeze.
Although reading times are fast enough (between 4-8MB/s), writing is a bit slower - it tops out at about 4MB/s, which is good enough for the "Class 4" rating and fast enough to capture pictures without (noticeable) lag in my cameras.
It's a great card for the price; just make sure you understand what you're buying.
By A. N. Shiau (San Gabriel, CA United States)
The Kingston 4gb SDHC memory card, like all other Kingston products, is an exceptional piece of equipment. I use it with my Canon SD1000 and I get nothing but blazing fast write times and no headaches. Make sure your device supports SDHC because if not, it will not work. This is a key reason why people are left "unsatisfied" by what they get, not because of the product, but because they did not do their homework.
Buyers, you should really take note that, most reviews on any site about not only Kingston, but other great brands, is heavily altered by idiot customers leaving comments to attack the site that sold them the items. So don't quickly judge an product based on how many stars it has, because honestly, you cannot take that into consideration unless you have read every review posted.
